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bobbotron
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# Posted: 6 Apr 2014 10:01pm
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So it looks like I have a lot of hole digging ahead of me this summer. I've done quite a bit in the past, and I find the most difficult part is when you hit a rock that's half in the way, and you can spend forever trying to dislodge, even with a breaker bar, etc.
I was thinking it might save a lot of time to buy a rotary hammer (SDS, or SDS-plus?) with a chisel attachment, and just break these rocks up in the hole instead. I rented a bosch 1" rotary hammer last year for drilling 7/8" holes in rock and was really impressed with it. I'm not sure how something like that would do for destroying small/medium sized rocks for hole digging, I was wondering if you folks had any experiences with this, whether this is something worth doing or if I should save my money.
I think I'll also be renting an auger, but same problem as with a clam shell digger, they get stopped by rocks!
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Truecabin
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# Posted: 6 Apr 2014 10:25pm - Edited by: Truecabin
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ive heard of that method.
you can use the drill to dig in clay soils make swiss cesse then bust it up also heard of using a shop vac and a 3" pipe to suck out whatever will suck
never had a vac around at the right time but sounds like it would work
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soundandfurycabin
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# Posted: 7 Apr 2014 05:48am
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The rotary hammer by itself won't break up the rock. I tried breaking up a boulder in a hole using a 1-9/16" hammer with a chisel attachment. By luck, there was a hairline crack through the boulder and it split neatly in half. After that though, I was not able to break it down any further, despite 30+ minutes of hammering away at it. Apparently the right way to go about it is to drill several holes in a line and then split it using feathers and wedges.
On the other hand, the rotary hammer and chisel were very effective against a clay and gravel mix. A shovel barely made a dent in it but the rotary hammer chewed it up no problem.
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bobbotron
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# Posted: 7 Apr 2014 10:58am - Edited by: bobbotron
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Yeah, I'm thinking it'd be another good tool to have, but not the be all and end all. I was thinking of either getting a 1" SDS drill (like a cheap/disposable Ryobi) or a 1 1/8" SDS Plus Bosch. The larger demolition hammers are out of my price range!
Truecabin, we used a shop vac on the sandy soil for the cabin piers. Felt like cheating, it worked extremely well.
Can't seem to link it, but here's a photo of the vac in action!
https://www.flickr.com/photos/bobbotron/7493888198/in/set-72157629988030289
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